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Canada got the last hurrah at the Celebration of Light Saturday evening, closing the three-night event with a winning display. Canada was declared the winner of the event, with Brazil and China finishing second and third, respectively.

Brown fir longhorned beetles, which attack dead or dying trees, were discovered by staff at a Metro liquor store last month as they unpacked wood and pine cone decorations.

The B.C. Liquor Distribution Branch will destroy $182,000 worth of Christmas decorations imported from China because the shipment included an unwanted gift: a brown fir longhorned beetle.

The wood-boring pest, which attacks dead or dying trees, was discovered by staff at a Metro liquor store last month as they unpacked wood and pine cone decorations.

The beetle was reported to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which last week ordered the decorations be removed from stores and destroyed.

It’s not known how many beetles were found in the shipment, which was ordered by a designer who was hired to decorate the branch’s 195 high-end Signature liquor stores for the holidays.

The branch said it will seek to recover the money it lost from the designer.

It also wasn’t immediately known which Chinese company supplied the goods, or if any other B.C. store or company had made similar orders that could contain the pests. The CFIA did not return calls for an interview by press time.

B.C. forests ministry officials said the beetle, a species not found in Canada, is not a significant risk to the country. Although a relative of the Asian longhorned beetle, which can aggressively kill trees, the brown fir longhorned beetle tends to lay eggs in the bark of dead or weakened trees, with its larvae feeding on the inner wood of the tree, creating holes in the wood. As a result, the B.C. government does not spray for long-horned beetles.

But B.C. officials acknowledge the beetles sometimes show up in log sorts where they may lay eggs in cut logs.

Leo Rankin, a retired entomologist in Williams Lake, noted it appears brown fir longhorned beetle is partial to redwoods, and could potentially be a risk to B.C. cedars.

“It doesn’t look like it would be a problem in Canada, but you never know and it’s always good to err on the side of caution,” Rankin said. “It’s the job of the CIFA to make sure we don’t get any introduced species into Canada.

“That’s the nightmare for any sort of management of wood products coming in from Asia ... that you can bring in species. It’s not only Christmas decorations, it can be pallets or tables, all sorts of things. Unfortunately it’s a big risk anytime you bring in anything outside North America, that there could be insects in it.”

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection Service last year intercepted a brown fir longhorned beetle in Baltimore during a search of a container of crafts from China. In a statement, the service said wood-boring insects “pose a serious threat to our nations forests and to our timber industries, particularly during their voracious larval period.”

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency introduced new requirements earlier this year to prevent the introduction and spread of the Asian long-horned beetle, a pest that could seriously threaten Canada’s forests and trees.

In Canada, this beetle has only been found in the Greater Toronto Area where one was last detected in 2007.

Under the new rules, logs and dried branches of host trees, and firewood of all species, cannot be imported from areas of the United States where this beetle is present, or from the regulated area within the Greater Toronto Area.

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